Data is critical to every aspect of how an organization functions, and it is constantly growing, which is why it’s so important to have the right processes and practices in place to manage company data. 

More than 80 percent of an organization’s stored data is known as “unstructured data.” That means that spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, media, virtual images, and many other file types are not residing in a database. Combined with data growth, this introduces problems for effectively managing company data, which is a core principle objective of effective data governance.

“The world is one big data problem.” – Andrew McAfee

What is Data Governance?

Data governance policies define rules within an enterprise according to several factors, including data access, storage, security, usage, and disposal. Most definitions pertain to the proper, consistent, and legal management practices as it relates to how data is stored and secured within an enterprise. 

While most organizations have specified policies, perhaps stored in an employee handbook or elsewhere within the company, their lack of enforcement within an enterprise is a troubling concern. Many factors prevent enforced data governance policies, including:

• Lack of automated management
• IT unfamiliarity regarding the relevance of stored data, and who should have access to certain types of data
• Inability to determine what files are stored, where, and who has access to them
• The lack of time to manage data governance tasks
• Inadequate or non-existent reporting systems for notifying security personnel when sensitive data could be compromised by unauthorized access 
• And many other factors 

Fortunately, forward-thinking software companies have built solutions to address the data governance challenges identified above. Condrey Corporation, a trusted Concensus Technologies partner, is one of those companies. Concensus technicians are trained and experienced in deploying and servicing Condrey Corporation’s Senergy, Galileo, and Groupsymmetery advanced data governance products, which have been recognized by top analysts, such as Gartner and IDC.

Introducing Data Governance as a Service 

For the first time, Concensus Technologies and Condrey Corporation are expanding its partnership to launch a Data Governance as a Service (DGaaS) offering. With the combined forces of the two companies now offered as a service, organizations will be able to count on Concensus to work with them to:

• Run and deliver regularly scheduled reports on data storage, access, and growth for your review so that you have the information you need to decide on corrective action
• Establish policies to take corrective action
• Establish procedures for the lifecycle management of your data, according to your written data governance policies
• Establish policies that can lock down access to high-value targets on your network
• Manage group memberships to help assure that authorized users have access to the right data
• Establish line-of-business data owners to assist IT in determining appropriate access permissions for users
• Help you demonstrate compliance with policies and regulations in an audit
• Assist in access reviews for both access to applications and sensitive data located in the network file system
• And much more!

Learn More in our Upcoming Webinar

Concensus and Condrey Corporation will be introducing its DGaaS offering in a webinar scheduled for April 23rd at 1:30 PM. This detailed webinar will cover the services and expertise we can provide to help you meet your data governance goals, and protect your company data.  This event has already passed, but you can watch our newest webinar here.